Challenges of Managing Common Resources

Common goods are those natural or man-made resources that serve all members of a particular community and its institutions. Unlike private goods such as cars or mobile phones, all members have free access to commons, i.e., the goods cannot simply be fenced off. As a result, such goods tend to be overused, leading to a loss of welfare-the tragedy of the commons. In this chapter, we discuss the concept of the tragedy of the commons, why it is relevant to global and local environmental problems, and how the social dilemma might be resolved

Social Innovation (or Why We Need the Civil Society)

Activities enacted by economic and governmental actors at various levels will not be sufficient to achieve the necessary turnaround of our consumption patterns and economic systems. What is needed instead are orchestrated, multilevel, and possibly cross-sectoral approaches that offer new solutions to the grand challenges we currently face. There is growing recognition among scholars that civil society plays an important role in addressing so-called "wicked" social, economic, and environmental problems. In this chapter, we discuss the concept of social innovation, how it can be put into practice, and how it can be scaled

Policy Instruments and Financial System

This chapter introduces negative externalities, i.e., costs incurred by a third party without the polluter having to pay compensation, and exemplifies them by external costs of transport in Switzerland. Next, the chapter compares various policy instruments the state can use to address market failures in dealing with externalities. Finally, the role of the financial system is discussed, which can counteract the current market failure in connection with externalities via sustainable measures in the area of investment and lending

Corporate Sustainability

As we will discuss in this chapter, companies are an important steering parameter for sustainable development as they develop new, more sustainable products and services or improve the sustainability of their organizations and internal processes. However, companies will not be willing to make a substantial contribution to sustainable development if this does not also pay off economically. Current developments suggest that corporate sustainability is becoming increasingly important in both the field of sustainability policy and the field of management. Five reasons have been identified for these developments. First, there is societal pressure on companies to do their part for sustainable development, which will lead to stricter policies and shifts in demand. Second, many new business opportunities are emerging for companies, which also makes it attractive to profitable invest in this area. Third, companies should worry about the immediate impact of climate change on their operations. Fourth, there is a growing risk of litigation over climate change. Fifth, the financial sector is also doing its part to increase the pressure on companies, in some cases banks are making harder for unsustainable companies to obtain credit

The Future of Sustainable Business: The Circular Economy

To meet environmental targets, it will be central that we use existing materials more efficiently. Accordingly, the future of sustainable business will be closely linked to our ability to build a circular economy. Companies today usually work with linear business models that assume that goods are disposed of by consumers after use and thus become waste. In contrast, the idea of a circular economy is to maximize the benefits of everything that already exists. In this Chapter, we introduce the concept of circular economy and explain why it is relevant for future ecological and economic development

Sustainable Consumption

In this chapter we exam the concept of sustainable consumption, we look at how consumption not only drives resource consumption at home but also abroad. We examine the areas requiring the most action. While the actions that consumers can take to reduce their consumption of resources may seem on the face of it trivial, putting them into practice is no simple task. This leads us to briefly discuss what can be done to encourage people to make more sustainable choices through choice architechture and cost transparency

The Concept of Sustainable Development

There are various definitions of sustainable development. However, none is as widely accepted as the one published in 1987 in the report Our Common Future. When we speak of sustainable development, we usually mean the three dimensions of nature, society and economy. These cannot be separated, but seen as elements of a holistic system. Sufficiency, efficiency and consistency are three elementary approaches for a society within planetary boundaries. Since 2015, the Agenda 2030 with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals has provided us with a widely used reference framework for global sustainable development

Sustainability in a Digital Context

While the three dimensions of sustainability, the three approaches to a sustainable system, and the three levels of sustainability in a corporate environment all remain relevant and valid, additionally another three dimensions have to be considered when discussing the sustainability of digital artifacts. In this context, the term digital artifacts covers everything man-made and digital, therefore data and software, alike. The dimension “Sustainability of ICT” is focusing on the use of material resources and energy to develop, build, maintain, upgrade, re-furbish and finally dispose of all the hardware necessary to access any digital artifact and make it useful. The dimension “Sustainability through ICT”, on the other hand, concentrates on the sustainability-related effects digital artifacts can have. Frequently cited examples are the increased efficiency of combustion engines through electronically controlled injection, more fuel-efficient software-based route planning for delivery services or IT-generated flight profiles, saving fuel and time. The chapter then continues to elaborate the ten criteria of sustainable digital artifacts, and concludes by discussing the indirect effects digital artifacts might have